Malgorzata Chodakowska: Sculpting Wine, Things To Do In Dresden

On a warm afternoon, we walked into an idyllic surrounding of a quaint vineyard in Dresden. Pillnitz runs by Klaus Zimmerling and his polish artist wife Malgorzata Chodakowska. Vineyards and wine tasting tours are quite common in this part of the world. Most big vineyards having a tour brochure that for a fee takes you around the vineyard. Let you have a look at the grape vines, show the unique process of wine production and let you taste the wine that they eventually hope you will purchase. It is an experience that one can definitely explore at least once in a lifetime. Even if you do not drink. There is a certain romance associated with vineyards and wines in this region that is so much an essential part of the culture here.

Malgorzata Chodakowska – Things to do in Dresden

Artist Malgorzata Chodakowska

Vineyard

This vineyard like most other vineyards had a small slanted hillside marked for growing grapes. Depending on what time of the year you visit you can see different stages of the grapes vines. A stone building in the middle stood as the wine cellar where the wine is stored and allowed to ferment. What was different in this winery was the fact that it was a boutique winery. That makes organic wines only, though there is no such certification that they have. It is single-handedly managed by the owner and produces about 10,000 liters of white wine every year. Primarily sold locally but some of it exported to the far east in Hong Kong. Their wines come in fruit & floral flavors like apple, peaches, apricot, passion fruit, yellow roses, etc. They even had wine with the flavor of fresh coriander.

Klaus Zimmerling in his Vineyard

The cellar, the building top, couple’s home and the garden were dotted with wooden sculptures made by Malgorzata and they serve as her studio. Over a cup of coffee and local cheesecake, she spoke animatedly about her sculptures that she makes all by herself. She is proud of the fact that not many women can do these sculptures as they need a lot of physical strength. Malgorzata Chodakowska spoke about how she started sculpting in her childhood. Starting with the soaps and graduated to wood. How she is fascinated by the dance moves. The flow in dance movements reflects in a lot of her work and mentioned a sculpture she had made based on Kathak.

Zimmerling Wine Bottles

Sculptures

Her wooden sculpted pieces were embellished with gold sheet making them a unique combination of rustic wood and shining metal. A lot of her sculptures have been installed as fountains. We saw them working when she took us to the local gallery where her exhibition was on. Some of them carried an illusion while most had a flowing motion quality. Her most famous creation is “Sea of Tears” installed at the Dresden Heide cemetery that commemorates the February 1945 bombing of the city of Dresden.

Sculptures

Klaus uses the sculptures as labels to represent the years of the wine, somewhere bringing the work of two of them together.

Sculpture

You can take a tour for 25 Euro and it takes about 1-2 hours of time and includes the tasting of 6-7 of their wines. You can, of course, buy the wine – that is affordable. Sculptures – that you have to be quite rich to be able to afford. The merchandise made from sculptures – that are good mementos to pick. Add it to your list of Things to do in Dresden, Saxony, Germany tourist attractions.

Recommend you to read the following Things to do in Dresden, Germany tourist attractions on my Travel Blog.

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IndiTales – an award-winning travel blog from India covering Indian & International tourism destinations. We love admiring the art, history, culture and art history of the tourism destinations and bring back to you the must-see things in India and the world. We love to walk around cities and bring them to you as walking tours. We visit the museums and tell you what not to miss there. We go on jungle safaris and bring back nature trails for you. We travel the offbeat roads and bring you the road trips. We share our travel tips and of course, the travel stories we met on the road.